Sunday, May 8, 2011

Put Them All Together They Spell Mother…

‘M’ is for the many things she gave me,

‘O’ means…Ow, I’m telling on you...MOM!!

They say that ‘the’ is the most used word in the English language, but I am willing to bet that ‘Mom’ is up there. From the time that baby utters his or her first word, Mama - or some variation thereof – it will be his or her most spoken noun throughout his or her formative years.

As young children, we saw our mothers as our constant companions, teachers, nursemaids and nose wipers. They dressed us in snowsuits, undressed us, helped us to the bathroom, and then re-dressed us in snowsuits. They were teddy bear menders, peanut butter and banana sandwich makers, birthday party throwers and monster-busters. When the monsters came out from under the bed, it was Mom who chased them away - apparently, moms are scarier than monsters. Whatever the problem, Mom could fix it. They were our life.

As we began our journey into puberty our mothers began to change. They became homework enforcers, facts-of-life tellers, “Don’t fight with your sister” beggars and training bra buyers – training bra…what were we training them to do? Sit pretty? Stay? Our mothers ceased to be our whole life. Sure, we still depended on them for the basics, but they lost some of their ‘cool’ factor. Our friends became more important.

When our teen years arrived our mothers’ transformations became complete. They were curfew setters, wild party going deniers, dress code givers and “I was your age once.” Insisters. They seemed to morph into a completely alien species that didn’t understand the important things in life at all.

As we kicked and screamed our way out of adolescence and into adulthood we, once again, began to see our mothers in a different light. They were human after all. They became, sounding boards, comforters, encouragers and friends. When we were teens, who could have known that mothers understood so much.

Now, some of us have become mothers and have entered our own stages of transformation; your children’s everything, their safe place to come home to, the bane of their existence, or their font of experience.

And we appreciate our own mothers so much more. We thank them for our lives, for nurturing us, for disciplining us, for trying to steer us in the right direction, and for comforting us when we make a wrong turn. We apologize for the sleepless nights, the anxiety and the grey hairs. We hope it’s all been worth it.

‘M’ is for mothers. They are the first people we love and, if we are fortunate, we get to love them for many, many years.